Luis Miguel Delgado
University of Pittsburgh
Email: delarria@hotmail.com

"Maria Lionza's Nomadic Cults:
Politics, Media and Nomadic Identities in a Venezuelan Hedonistic Cult"

Most of all, the Maria Lionza cult is remarkable product of syncretism. Catholicism, native America beliefs, African cults and some elements coming of the media power have been integrated. A number of anthropologists thinks that this cult connect with the transition from a rural society to an urban one, but the increase of addicts and the mix of different elements could be seen also as mediation between the impact of modernity and the strange modes the people find to blend the archaic and postmodern discourses, mentalities and influences. Through Maria Lionza Venezuela's repressed needs, wishes, fears and suspicions come to surfaces. Herman Garmendia (1966) said: Maria Lionza "is goodness, a queen and a mother that is angelic and demonic" Following the approach of Michel Maffesoli and others thinkers --regarding the importance of enduring to be attentive to the customs and uses of basic sociality as a form to stress the link existing between concern for the present, daily life, and the imaginary-- it's possible to embrace new views of communitarian desire and shared emotion. It's what I would like to try to think in this occasion: politics, media, history, nomadic identities, and multiples forms of solidarity and generosity converge and diverge at the same time in this ambiguous, wild and hedonistic cult. So, one of the most important characteristics of this cult is the state of trance that many marialionceros go through making possible to the community speaking with numerous of dissimilar spirits.

One of the most remarkable representations of this cult takes place in the Venezuelan's jails. Feelings of fear, generosity and courage arise and are interpreted by the marialioceros experiencing possession. By using theirs bodies, the jail community takes contact with deities, friends and dead family parents. The cult in the jail becomes a struggle strategy that takes advantage of the ritual and the media worlds to authorize claims and to endure the everyday dangerous circumstances. What I would like to think is how and why this cult becomes useful to mediate between social, political and spiritual wishes, and spectations.